I delivered 10 days after my last post. I went in for a "routine" appointment (although really none of my appointments were routine in the third trimester), the dopplers did not look good for Miss E, and so I was transferred to Labor and Delivery at 35 weeks- about as far along as I reasonably expected to get. Because I ate a banana during my morning sonogram, I had to wait EIGHT HOURS before I could go to the operating room, and I wasn't allowed to eat, drink, or do anything except lie in a hospital bed and fret. I am thankful I was not in labor, but denying food to a woman who is pregnant with twins is cruel. It remains my strongest memory of that day. I went through three packs of gum trying to convince myself that I was eating food. Even during the actual operation, my thoughts vacillated between "I'm scared" and "I'm hungry." I will forever have a soft spot for saltines and jello, the only foods I was allowed to eat for 24 hours after.
The next four months...well, no one wants to read a litany of misery. Suffice it to say that while I expected that having newborn twins would be hard and terrible, I could not have imagined the extent of it because I did not know it was physically possible to be that tired and miserable and still be alive. But here we are. I do think our babies were and continue to be more difficult than average, which has been confirmed by everyone who has helped take care of them. Lucky us!
I continue to be amazed that most people have children, that it is a routine thing that happens to almost everyone regardless of their intelligence, resources, capabilities, etc. It has seemed to me to require almost supernatural strength and abilities. I feel like I almost broke, physically and mentally. I am lucky that I had enough help that the twins never ended up abandoned on the porch and taken into custody by CPS. I would feel bad about that now.
The past two months have been better, mostly because they sleep at night now, so in between nighttime feedings (still two each), we are able to get an average of 6 hours of sleep. After the first few months, this feels like a luxury. Also, I no longer spend all of my time in doctors' offices or hospital rooms. That was an unexpected and particularly unpleasant theme of my maternity leave.
Things I wondered about before delivering:
-I didn't end up breastfeeding. I feel fine (glad?) about it. I can sort of see the appeal if I had one baby, particularly since it apparently makes them fall asleep. But I still don't get the hysteria.
-It wasn't love at first sight. Especially since they don't look anything like me, I mostly wondered who these demanding strangers were.
-I'm 50/50 on the doula. I'm glad she was there but I think it would have been fine without her also, except not really because Jason didn't want to accompany me in the operating room.
-I'm happy about going back to work and don't feel any guilt about this. I ended up taking a longer leave than expected to be able to take E to all of her medical appointments.
-Sleep! I totally get why people don't follow the APA safe sleep guidelines. Newborns do not want to sleep by themselves on a hard, flat surface. I giggle when I think of how we set up bassinets in our room thinking we would all sleep like that. We just didn't sleep at all for a while, and then slept in short, individual "shifts." The babies slept in whatever contraption was close by when they finally fell asleep. H slept in his bouncy chair for....a long time. They had a 24 hour attendant for months since there was never more than an hour or so that they were both asleep at night. They only recently started sleeping in their cribs after we did sleep and nap training. It was/is painful. Not a natural transition at all.
I'm going back into the office in two weeks. It will be the first time in almost 8 months! I haven't been more than 10 miles from my house in at least as long. I'm pretty excited to get back to my life.
